


a rot that lingers, sweet and slow

by writingisacurse



Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novels)
Genre: Amputation, Blood, Bugs & Insects, Death, Drug Use, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Smut, Mild Gore, Overdosing, brief vincent cameo, dead bodies, gross descriptions of a lot of stuff actually, gross descriptions of food, lawrence is his own warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-26 21:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30112272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingisacurse/pseuds/writingisacurse
Summary: Lawrence tries to have a normal adult relationship for the first time in his life. Unfortunately, Lawrence has a really distorted idea of what 'normal' means. How bad could it be?
Relationships: Lawrence (Boyfriend to Death)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	1. there's a monster outside my room. can i have a glass of water?

**Author's Note:**

> Chose not to use some archive warnings because I really don't know if some of this stuff is bad enough to fall under the pre-selected warnings. Proceed with caution and be aware that this story contains graphic imagery (not necessarily all gore) and some implied dub-con. OC is a mentally unstable woman who's very lost in life and incredibly depressed, and well- we can all imagine how well using Lawrence as a coping mechanism is going to turn out for her.

“So, let me get this straight- you can pick any way to die, and you choose drowning?” 

Cecily asked this, her voice heavy with incredulous doubt, as she sunk back into the worn down recliner that smelled like a greenhouse on a hot summer day. Everything in the apartment smelled that way, but she didn’t mind. It was better than the cold surgical smell of her new workplace, and that was good enough for her. 

The man across from her was holding a generously packed joint, letting the smoke curl up and away between his fingers. He didn’t seem to care about the wastage, a habit that Cecily found herself hanging onto like she was still a freshman buying dime bags with her lunch money. 

Now she made enough that she didn’t have to worry about letting her joints burn away idly either, but still she found the worry hard to shake. Like being poor continued to gnaw at you from the inside out, even when you weren’t anymore. 

He took a long time to respond. He always did. 

“It's the most peaceful way to go,” Lawrence said quietly, taking another long drag on the joint. He never seemed to get high when they smoked up together, he only got more lethargic: his dark circles deepened like his eyes were rotting back into his skull, his hair would get slightly frizzy from sweat, and he’d talk less. A lot less. 

But it was peaceful, he was right about that. Being with Lawrence was a little bit like drowning in its own way; he felt otherworldly, disconnected from the street below them and all of its people milling around like ants from so high up, him and his apartment were another dimension, one that Cecily found herself more and more inclined to spend her days in as they went by. 

“It’s actually supposed to be horrible,” she told him factually, hauling herself up and towards his extended hand to take the joint back from him. She could say a lot of negative things about Lawrence- his ability to share was not one of them. 

He looked as if he considered this for a moment, and then stared right at her with those big, blue eyes, “All death is horrible, Cecily.” 

Every time he said her name it felt like a claw was dragging its way up her spine, parting the flesh as easily as she could peel a sticker off a plum. Every time, she expected to look in the mirror afterwards and see a thin pink line crawling all the way up her back. 

Lawrence was somebody who was impossible to get used to. She had the feeling that he felt the same way about everyone else, and that his discomfort around people made them uncomfortable in turn. Nobody should be that repulsed by other human beings, but Lawrence was. It was one of the less admirable things about him. Not that he had many admirable qualities.

It shouldn't have made her feel special that he didn't seem to carry that burden of disgust and resentment towards her. It should have been a warning signal going off in her head, saying: something isn't right here. 

“I would choose pills.” She told him, unprompted, because he hadn’t asked. Lawrence never displayed any particular urge to get to know her, and for some reason this didn’t bother her. Cecily was a chronic over-sharer, she would find a way to make other people learn about her, even if it was against their own will. One of _her_ less admirable traits. She didn’t have many of those either. 

Lawrence probably thought she didn’t notice, but when the words left her mouth his eyes darted to the antique cabinet that held the plethora of drugs and substances that he used to sleep, to numb pain, to get high. If she had been less foggy from the joint, it might have been weird. 

Once she had thought it strange that Lawrence owned such a delicate piece of furniture. Everything else inside his apartment looked like he had picked it up off the side of the road, from the splintering desks that held innumerable plants, to the worn down beige couches they were both settled into. One day he had confessed that the cabinet had been in the apartment when he moved in, which made more sense than the picture she had been fostering in her mind of Lawrence mulling over several different high quality pieces at an antiques thrift shop, wondering which would be a better suited home for his hallucinogens.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, passing the joint back and forth and back and forth until it burned close to the filter, and without asking her if she wanted the last draw, Lawrence put it out in the over-filled ashtray that sat on the coffee table in front of his couch. It was spilling ash onto the table, leaving soft black smudges where a drink had been laid over top of it, or someone accidentally brushed their hand against it. 

He looked at her, his straight hair mussed up- the ponytail it had been in when she first knocked on his door was gone entirely, leaving his honey-gold locks to fall around his face and shoulders haphazardly- and cocked his head to the side in a silent question. Cecily was used to those now. 

_Stay? Or go?_

Lawrence had a funny way of making both options cause her guilt. He seemed to harbor a great discomfort for having her sleep over at his house, and the single bed in the corner of his room (the bed that looked disturbingly like it came from a hospital) was too small for both of them, so she always ended up on his old couch without a blanket. Lawrence had no spare blankets in his apartment, just the one for his bed, and he never offered it to her. 

At the same time, he always looked a little neglected when she left, giving her the impression that she had just kicked an excited puppy, or told a kid that she couldn’t play hide and seek with them. Sometimes she stayed for her, because she didn’t feel like going back to a cold, empty apartment. Other times, she stayed for him, to avoid getting that look thrown at her. That look, like he could keep her in here forever if he was feeling particularly clingy, and she wouldn't protest. Some days, she thought she might let him. 

She already felt like she was rotting from the inside out, it may as well have been tucked away inside of his apartment, decomposing down to a greenish black sludge like a neglected plant on his windowsill. 

On one occasion, she had gotten him to cuddle her on the couch until they both fell asleep, but she didn't count herself lucky enough for that to happen twice. Lawrence was disturbingly good at cuddling, despite how tense he had been the entire time. Cecily had to admit that it was nice, falling asleep in his warm (almost too warm, almost musty) apartment, wrapped in his arms, which were strong but not _too_ strong. The sort of strength you built from mindless manual labor. She had drawn circles with her index finger around the part of his bicep that had one of the tattoo’s on it, the single rings filled in entirely, until she had felt him start to softly snore behind her. 

She had gone out like a light after that, lulled into a dreamless sleep by his heavy breathing. When she woke, it was in a frantic upheaval of anxiety, Lawrence, as she found out, was a clingy sleeper. He had all but rolled entirely on top of her, smothering her in a mass of muscle, t-shirt, and sweat. 

This time though, she shook her head, “I should go home,” _I have to work early,_ she wanted to say, but he never needed a reason. He nodded and stood up to go undo the half dozen locks that held his door closed. She had asked before, why he needed so many, but he had just looked at her with those pale, haunted eyes, and ignored the question. 

If Cecily had any other friends, they might have told her that Lawrence was a field full of red warning flags. If she had other friends, they might have reached over and ripped the rose-tinted glasses off of her face. 

But Cecily had no other friends here. Only Lawrence. 

By herself, she might have been able to care about the warning signs, but caring about them would mean opening her eyes enough to not be able to shut them again. As much as she didn't want to, she enjoyed his weirdness, and couldn't imagine hooking up with someone normal anymore. Someone who would talk about their day at work filing papers, or big box warehouse sales. Someone who had grilled asparagus for lunch and filled up one of those stainless steel water bottles a couple times a day (did Lawrence even drink water?). 

Lawrence was straight to the point. If he wanted to have sex with her, he would just push her onto the couch and start undressing her, silently. She had found it strange (but enticing) the first time he had covered her mouth with his hand, making displeased growls when she got too loud. Lawrence liked quiet- he was the first guy she had ever met who wanted sex to be a silent affair, and for some reason she didn't mind. It was weird. Just like everything else about Lawrence. 

She didn’t say goodbye. She stepped out into the hallway, where the outside air seemed to permeate the way it didn’t inside his apartment. They looked at each other for a moment, Lawrence looked away, and then he closed the door. Cecily was used to his brand of coldness by now. She had learned early on in their strange friendship- if her feelings were going to get hurt every time Lawrence did something that- if it came from any normal person- would be offensive, she would always be hurting from the inside out. Touching on that subject was like tonguing at a broken tooth. 

Instead she chose not to care- it was the price she paid for getting to sit in his particular slice of purgatory and let herself rot there, like an old piece of moss. 

* * *

She woke up the next day feeling hungover, although she hadn’t had anything to drink since moving. 

Drinking had been a problem for her after high school, one that had taken several group meetings and a good three years to recover from. Sobriety wasn’t something she could boast, but neither was addiction. That, if nothing else, she could be proud of. 

She sat up groggily, and looked around her room. She didn’t remember the walk home, but she hadn’t been here last night, which meant she was with Lawrence. She didn’t really remember what they had done either- an annoying side effect of smoking joints he rolled. She still wasn't sure where he got his stuff, but it was unlike anything else she’d ever smoked. 

Her bed was disheveled, the sheets hadn’t been washed once since she opened them from the package three months ago. She swung her legs out of bed and onto the hard, cold floor beneath. She really had to invest in some carpets. 

Her apartment was almost a studio apartment. Only two rooms branched off from the main area, a bathroom no bigger than a storage closet with no tub, only a standup shower, and her bedroom, which was only big enough for her bed, a single nightstand, and a rack that held the clothes she didn’t feel like keeping in giant Rubbermaid containers. 

The main area of the house held a kitchenette, three loveseats that all had the same matching pattern of leaves and birds- the only inheritance she had gotten from her grandmother, a bookshelf, and a small portable fireplace that replaced an actual heating system for her apartment. 

It wasn’t a very nice apartment, it was the first listing she had seen in her budget. She had planned to move shortly after getting her first paycheck, but once she had settled in the thought of uprooting and replanting seemed like too much work, so she’d opted to stagnate. 

She got dressed for work mechanically, no real thought behind what she would wear. The position was fairly new to her- six months ago she had graduated, three months ago she had taken a job posting all the way across the country. West coast to east coast. It had been a transition, one she was still in the middle of. One she was still wondering if she might live to regret. 

Being a mortician was significantly less rewarding than everyone had let on. Everyone talked about how fulfilling it was to be able to give people’s loved ones a good send off, to make their last memories of their dead relative peaceful ones. 

She hadn’t gotten to that part yet. The people whose loved ones she took care of- the dead bodies who’s jaws she wired shut, the eyes she sewed closed, the skin she painted and plastered and made look alive again- they never cared about her one way or the other. Her work was the last place in the world they ever wanted to be. It didn’t matter how many carnations she shoved in a vase, or the color of the drapes in the viewing room, or if the biscuits in the entryway were sugared or iced. To them, she was a collector of death. 

Today they had someone new. Someone dead. She was a seventeen year old senior who had overdosed and died alone in her bedroom a few days ago. The autopsy had been short, straight to the point. It was clear-cut suicide. The family was distraught, and today Cecily had to inject their daughter’s body with a myriad of chemicals that would keep her insides from spoiling like old meat before they had a chance to weep over her dead body, and comment on how pretty she looked now that she was slathered in several ounces of makeup and a dress she likely would have never worn in her short life. 

It wasn’t Cecily's first embalming, but it was the first one she would be doing alone. The thought didn’t scare her, but it didn’t exactly fill her with joy either. 

She scarfed down a quick breakfast of buttered toast and apple juice, and left her apartment as quiet as it had ever been. She wondered idly if a single noise that wasn’t accidental or consequential had been made there, as she turned her key in the single lock holding her door closed, and made off down the hallway. 

* * *

Cecily worked with two people, a woman in her late forties named Julia, whose father had owned the funeral home before he himself had been embalmed there, and Henry, her father’s business partner who was a couple decades younger, but just as boring as she imagined Julia’s father had been. Neither of them spoke very much unless it was to talk about work. Cecily had tried to get them to go for drinks during her first couple weeks, but they had both declined without any embarrassment on their parts for not being polite to a new coworker. 

She had only been hired because Julia was pregnant (something she staunchly refused to talk about) and would soon be going off on maternity leave. Cecily didn’t particularly savor the thought of having to work alone with Henry in a few months. She knew other funeral homes had much larger teams of staff members, but this was what she got for deciding to move to a small city and employ herself at a family business. 

Neither of them said more than a casual 'hello, how are you' to her as she entered the building. She headed downstairs after putting her things away in her office, and got into her scrubs and shoe covers. 

The girl was gently pulled out and displayed on the cold metal table. She was pearlescent pale, the blue veins beneath her skin splayed out like a roadmap. _All roads lead to the heart,_ she thought absently, tracing her fingers over the lines in the young girl's arm, all the way to her chest. Laying her hand on a dead person’s chest and still instinctively expecting to feel a heartbeat was the oddest thing about the job. On her foot tag, Cecily read her name: _Abigail Saunders._

She worked mindlessly, in a haze of distant depression and slight melancholia. Doing the makeup was always the easiest part, the most relaxing part. If any part of working on a dead body could be considered relaxing. Sometimes Henry played music while he was down there, working on the bodies. Julia worked with youtube videos playing, happy stuff like mommy baking channels, and funny dog videos. 

Cecily worked in silence. Nothing but the occasional scrape of her tools or whir of a machine to break through the fog. Nothing else felt appropriate for an embalming, and she had failed to do what many of her professors had suggested upon taking up this profession: distancing herself from the work. She was unable to separate her job with the dead bodies laid out on the tables in front of her, so it felt disrespectful to put on pop songs while wiring their jaws shut. 

Sometimes she got the urge to lie in the freezer with the other bodies. Sometimes she put her arm in her fridge, against the plastic siding until her skin got cold and pale, and she took it out and touched it and wondered if anyone would trace her roadmaps with their fingers when she was dead. 

* * *

She got off at 8pm, after they carried the body into the hearse and drove to the burial site. She hadn’t done the funeral directing, that had been Julia’s job, and she was ever grateful for that. Interacting with the family members of dead people was something she didn’t do very well. The couple of times she’d tried she ended up sobbing in her office, her fist stuffed in her mouth to avoid letting Julia and Henry hear. She felt it too much, she was aware of that, but being aware didn't make it any easier. 

Without thinking, she put her car in gear and backed out of the parking lot, her mind instantly choosing a destination even though realistically, she knew it was probably a bad idea. 

She stopped at a coffee shop first, ordering herself an iced coffee with no sugar, and then a matcha tea, lukewarm. Then she continued her winding path through the city until she got to the industrial district, and kept going till she saw a familiar warehouse peek out over a cluster of smaller buildings. This side of town always smelled like smoke and rusted metal. 

She got out of the car and immediately heard the sound of several men laughing in a group, a little ways past where she had parked. She walked towards them, even though the person she was looking for could not have possibly been in the crowd of laughing people. 

It was around twilight, the blue and purple sky with the hue of sunset still echoing across it hadn’t triggered the streetlights yet, so it was hard to identify the gaggle of men standing outside the gaping maw of the warehouse. The loading bay doors were partially raised up, and all around the parking lot were half-loaded trucks, shipping containers, boxes, and a couple of forklifts. 

As she got closer, she noticed the tallest man in the group. He was huge, towering over the other men despite their obvious strength and height. He had a jagged flop of dark hair that obscured one of his eyes, and a very large mouth that broke out into a predatory grin when he laughed. It sounded more like a bark than anything. He was holding a cigarette in his left hand, and the smoke was idly trailing up and away behind him. 

Cecily walked up to them, drinks in hand and cleared her throat. 

The big guy turned to look at her, eyebrow arched, “You lost little bird?” he asked her, a note of mockery hiding beneath the deep wave of his voice. He sounded the way she imagined that smoke would, if smoke could talk. All dark and raspy, like if she heard that voice behind her on the street at night, she would start running the other way, no questions asked. 

“Nope, just looking for Lawrence actually. I brought him tea,” she said, raising up the matcha and waving it around as if to prove her point. 

The others didn’t say anything, they just looked at her. 

“What, you his little girlfriend or something? I could have sworn he was still a virgin,” the big man laughed from deep in his belly, while Cecily noticed the breadth of his chest- impossibly large. She imagined the size of his heart if she were to cut him open and scoop it out. She had doubts a man that size would even fit on her table- she'd have to push two together, and zip tie the legs so that they didn’t wander apart throughout the embalming. 

“Can you just point me in his direction?” Cecily asked, refusing to entertain him a moment longer than necessary. 

“Cecily?” A low voice asked from behind her, riddled through with surprise. She turned around to see Lawrence with a box in his arms, pale blue eyes looking slightly alarmed and very confused to be seeing her at his place of work. She had been here before, but only in the very early mornings, when she gave him a drive home on the odd occasion he had asked. 

She cast one last look back towards the group of his coworkers, the black-haired one wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she turned back towards Lawrence. He went towards one of the trucks and hopped up, placing the box inside. 

He sat on the edge of the truck, and she passed him the tea. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, still slightly suspicious as he took a sip and closed his eyes for a second, like he was savoring it. Cecily thought it was a wonder Lawrence wasn’t dead yet- almost everything he drank that didn’t come from her hands was laced. 

“I had a depressing day at work,” she explained, leaning against the truck, “I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know where else to go,” she said softly, kicking small rocks around with her sneakers. 

Lawrence looked as if he almost pitied her for a moment, but it was better that way. He got ugly sometimes, when he thought someone was trying to do him a favor. She didn't want ugly from him, not tonight. She just wanted a friend, a pair of ears open to listening about her depressing job. 

“I-I have work to do,” he said hesitantly, like he felt bad for telling her she couldn’t be there. He took another sip of his matcha, avoiding her eyes. She wondered what sort of worker Lawrence was- he was obviously on the sidelines in regard to the interpersonal relationships between his coworkers, but that didn't speak for his work ethic. 

“I know, your coworkers seemed less than impressed that you had company,” she said, laughing a little. 

“More like surprised,” he corrected her, mouth turning up a little at the corners. The ghost of a smile, maybe. 

“They don’t mind,” he continued hastily, almost as if he was afraid he had hurt her feelings, “Vincent over there-” he stopped to point out the tall man who she had interacted with moments ago, “He has his girl bring him lunch almost every day, in a paper bag with hearts scribbled all over it and everything,” Lawrence said with a heavy amount of disbelief, like it was unheard of to have your significant other bring you lunch. She tried to picture bringing Lawrence tea everyday, and assumed that he would stop talking to her until she knocked it off. 

He hated to be taken care of, and sometimes even her lackluster attempts at it made him hostile and reclusive. She had taken a gamble coming to his workplace tonight, but he seemed to be in an unusually friendly mood. Maybe he was just always like this at work. 

“I wouldn’t think he was the type to have his girlfriend bring him lunch,” Cecily remarked, grinning a little bit at the thought of such an imposing man having a little girlfriend bounce up to him, heart-covered lunch bag in hand. She couldn't picture it. 

Lawrence didn’t say anything in response, he just sipped his tea. 

“Can I have your keys?” She asked suddenly. She might have felt embarrassed to ask, if she had been able to feel any real emotions as of late. 

Lawrence looked at her for a long moment. It was the most uncomfortable silence the two of them had ever been trapped in. Suddenly Cecily regretted having asked. The last thing she needed was to lose her only friend in this city because she had a nasty habit of being overbearing, like mint in a garden, roots strangling out anything in its path. 

“You want to sleep at my apartment?” He said slowly, his eyes narrowing. 

“I promise, I won’t poke through your stuff. I like the plants, and the hum of the humidifier. It feels alive in there- my place just feels like a stiff corpse,” she said, wanting to laugh but feeling it caught in her throat when she remembered the actual corpse who her hands had been all over today. Abigail had been pretty. Long black hair and fair features. Cecily had to wonder what she had killed herself for. 

“Do...you need to talk about it?” Lawrence asked awkwardly, like he had never asked somebody that question in his entire life. The sky was getting darker around them, the daylight sensor lamps around the warehouse flickering to life. One of them came on directly above them, centering herself, Lawrence, and the truck, in a pool of yellowish light. 

Cecily let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, "I had a teenager who overdosed today. Not a single member of her family could get through their eulogies without sobbing. All I could think about was the way her skin got taught when all those chemicals were injected into her tissues. It's- nobody should see so many dead people. I think maybe I'm not cut out for it.” 

“That sounds….” Lawrence trailed off, like he didn’t even know what he had been trying to say. He looked like he was concentrating on it though, his features slightly contorted. It was a cute look. She wanted to reach over and pull his hair out of the elastic that held it in place. Cecily loved the way Lawrence looked with his hair down, but the one time she had tried to take it down herself he had grabbed her wrist with such intense force that she had been too scared to ever try again. She had noticed fingerprint shaped bruises on her arm the next day. 

_One day,_ she thought to herself as he sipped his tea, _one day I’m gonna push my hands through your hair and tighten my fists, and it’s gonna feel so good you won’t find it in yourself to get angry._

“Life is fragile,” Lawrence said out of nowhere, his gaze avoiding hers, “Like plants...it...wilts if nobody gives it enough care," he said softly, his expression turning strangely stoic, in a fond sort of way. Like he was talking about something he loved, rather than a dead teenager. 

Suddenly, a chill swept over Cecily and she wanted nothing more than to be out of Lawrence's company, and the strange mood he had donned. She had wanted sympathy, agreement that yes, it was weird that some people could embalm all day and not feel a gut-wrenching finiteness over it. That she wasn't an outlier for the way that she felt about it. Instead she had gotten the usual brand of Lawrence weirdness that had become so familiar to her. 

"I'm gonna go," she said stiffly, searching his face for a change in expression, but he just nodded in response. If he noticed anything off about her demeanor, he didn't show it. She beelined past the group of men, broken up now and slugging boxes back and forth, wrenched her car door open, and slammed it shut behind her. 

She didn't immediately pull away. She just sat there in the silence for a minute or two first, wanting to slam her fists down against the steering wheel. She couldn't even pinpoint _what_ was wrong, just that something was. 

She didn't want to go to Lawrence's apartment anymore, but she felt weird at the thought of him coming home in the morning and not finding her there. It felt almost suspicious, and something about Lawrence made her feel like he wouldn't react well to suspicion. For the first time since she moved, she wanted to go to her own apartment, turn her fireplace up and light several of the scented candles her mother sent her every year for Christmas. She wanted to put her favorite movie on and pop popcorn on the burner, open a bottle of wine.

But, she had backed herself into a corner by believing that Lawrence had the capability to make her feel better, like a normal person could have. So she flicked her blinker on after exiting the freeway, and turned down the street that housed his apartment building. 

It was warm and mildew-y inside, like it always was. The only real light his apartment had was a single bulb on the ceiling covered by a shade with a flowered pattern. It was off, but the apartment still glowed with the numerous little lights from humidifiers and extension cords, and the streetlight that spilled inside the rectangular window. 

Cecily's stomach rumbled insistently, and she was reminded how little she'd eaten that day. Just the toast from hours ago. Hesitantly, she stepped into Lawrence's kitchen and pulled open his fridge. She didn't want him to think that she was leeching off him, but she didn't want to go out again, and she was starving. 

When the fridge door opened, a smell hit her in the face like something solid. She recoiled away, her eyes squeezed shut and watering profusely. When she opened them again, she was immediately thankful that she had a strong stomach. In place of actual food, there were several grey and green piles of what might have once been edible food, crawling with maggots and buzzing with flies. She slammed the door shut and braced herself against the wall, feeling queasy. 

All at once she felt grimey and disgusting, like she was the thing covered in mold and riddled with maggots. She barely registered herself shedding her clothes until her hand was on the cool brass doorknob of the bathroom, and then she was in the shower, the hot water pounding the tension out of her shoulders. 

The water made her head feel clear again, her thoughts less muddled. She opened her eyes to search for some sort of soap or body wash. Only two bottles lined the shelves of Lawrence's shower, a 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner from the dollar store ( _Really, Law?)_ and a 'forest' scented body wash. She picked that up, refusing to wash her hair with anything that came from a dollar store, and hoped that Lawrence wouldn't mind that she used some. It smelled pleasantly piney, like he did, underneath the sickly sweet plant smell that constantly accompanied him, something that couldn't be achieved with soap. 

Once out of the shower, she dried herself with a limp towel that was still damp from the shower Lawrence probably took a few hours ago. She was pretty sure he only owned two towels. She didn't feel a whole lot cleaner than before, but the crawling sensation had left her skin at least. 

Cecily almost felt like rooting around his drawers to find where he kept his stash, to have something to help her sleep, but she didn't want to risk misplacing something. She had, after all, promised him she wouldn't look through his stuff. She stopped short in the living room, lingering between the bed or the couch, and eventually went with the couch. It was softer and cushier than his bed looked, but she did steal the single pale green blanket he slept with. She didn't want to get back in her work clothes, and hadn't had the foresight to take a change of clothes with her, something she was regretting now, so she grabbed one of his worn shirts off the floor and tugged it over her head. It smelled slightly of sweat, and the strange sweet thing he always smelled like- almost _too_ sweet- and curled up on his couch to fall into a restless stupor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I have to admit this is a little ooc for Lawrence. I try to keep him as similar to canon as possible, but lets be real, Lawrence deciding to date somebody instead of stealing them is pretty unrealistic, so you'll have to suspend your disbelief there. This fic isn't trying to redeem him or make him a softer version of himself, just playing with the concept of what sort of person Lawrence would attract if he tried to date 'normally'. Because nobody 'normal' is going to touch him with a ten foot pole. 
> 
> -That was a Vincent cameo, and the aforementioned girlfriend of his is my friend's OC, Jilly. Don't worry- I know the whole paper-bag-covered-in-hearts-lunch thing makes them seem pretty normal, but I assure you they are much more fucked up than this fic gives them credit for. I highly recommend checking them out at numbaoneflaya on tumblr, their Vincent headcanons are so on point <3 
> 
> -I feel like Lawrence is a matcha drinker. Can't quite explain why- probably something to do with the fact that I think Matcha tastes like rotten leaves. 
> 
> -Sorry to all the morticians out there for making the job seem completely soul-sucking and also for the load of inaccuracies I'm sure this fic has in regard to that profession. There's really only so much research I can do for a two-chapter fic about a serial killer who's decaying from the inside out
> 
> -As always thanks for reading and you can find me on tumblr at spaceandbones <3


	2. everybody is a book of blood

Cecily was still sound asleep when Lawrence clicked open the front door, but the noise of the old hinges creaking made her stir in her sleep. 

Lawrence stepped over the pile of clothes she had left just outside the tiles of his kitchen floor, peeked his head in the bathroom to find his towel slung over the door (where he had not left it), and finally turned to Cecily, caught somewhere between a groggy almost awake state, and a dream. 

One arm was splayed above her head, which was resting in the crook of it. Her dark hair was mussed up from hours of sleep, and the shirt she was wearing (his shirt, also not where he had left it) was riding up on her thighs a little. He noticed that his blanket was on the couch, having been kicked down so far as to only cover her feet, but everything else looked as he had left it. 

Except the door. 

Lawrence quietly kicked out of his shoes, abandoning them on the floor by the couch, and shrugged off his sweater, leaving him in a pair of grey sweatpants and a white shirt. He got on top of her sleeping body, rousing her just a little, but not quite enough to knock the dream she was having. She was radiating heat beneath him. 

When he leaned over, hands pressing her shoulders down into the couch, she woke with a small sound of annoyance. 

"Law?" she whispered, her eyes still closed. 

If they had been open, she might have had the good sense to be afraid of the expression he was wearing.

"I could be anyone," he hissed back, one of his hands alleviating the pressure on her shoulder to roam around her collarbones and neck idly, "You left my door unlocked." 

Then her eyes opened. She could sense the growing annoyance in him, like a flower just waking up at dawn, it would bloom into uncontrollable anger if she didn't do something to sate it. 

"I- I wasn't sure if I would wake up to you knocking," she stammered out, starting to sweat nervously. 

"Anyone could have walked in here while you were asleep." 

Cecily wasn't sure if he was feeling protective of her, or his things. Either way, it didn't feel likely to end well for her. 

"Sorry," she whispered, her big eyes flickering up to meet his. They were full of contempt. She should have locked the door, but the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. She was lying when she told him it was to be considerate of the fact that he might have gotten locked out- she had really just forgotten about the door and its multitude of locks entirely. 

He didn't respond verbally, instead his free hand locked around her neck and he began to squeeze. 

Lawrence had choked her before, during sex. It had been scary at first, she didn't know him very well and nobody ever knew where she was when she was with him, but after he had done it a few times, she had grown used to it. 

He always knew how to choke her, his hands finding the exact places to cut off her arteries. If Lawrence had the goal of suffocating her in mind, he tended to put a hand over her mouth and nose until her nails were frantically digging into his forearms. He had softly explained once that it was safer that way, than trying to suffocate by choking. 

Now it was different. His grip around her neck was all force, his hand digging into her muscle and windpipe at all the wrong angles, her throat was closed over and oxygen refused to squeeze down it and into her lungs. Her heart was slamming in her chest, her vision went blurry at the edges, and she was barely aware of her legs kicking beneath him, trying to get any sort of purchase before he choked her to death on his couch. 

Then all at once he let up. He didn't let go of her, just softened his grip, and her world came back to her in a haze of bright colors and sounds. The hum of the humidifier kicked back into her ears, the labored breathing of Lawrence above her, the first few rays of sunlight peeking in through his window enough to blind her.

She gasped for air, her lungs working hard to function beneath how hard he was pressing down into her, and for the first time since meeting Lawrence, she felt _actual_ fear. She felt like a mouse caught between a cat’s claws, so desperate she’d do anything to be free. Whether it was the act of being choked without caution, or the fact that Lawrence was strong enough to kill her with one hand, she couldn't say, all she knew was that it was driving her insane, and she had to get out from under him or she was going to go into hysterics. 

"I'll lock it next time," she wheezed pathetically- anything to get him to let up. 

He looked contemplative, "Maybe I won't let you leave, and you won't have to worry about it ever again," he said it so softly it was hard to distinguish it as an actual threat, but Cecily knew better than that. Lawrence was capable of awful things, she was fully aware that he was. Her heart jumped into her throat. _Full of shit, he’s full of shit, he’s just trying to scare you-_

The hand that wasn’t still lightly wrapped around her throat roamed down around her chest again, her collar, her shoulders, until he hesitated in the middle, right above her sternum, and took a fistful of his shirt that she was wearing. In one jagged action, he tore the material away from her chest, ripping his shirt down the middle. She tried to stifle the ragged gasp that accompanied the sound of tearing cotton, and the low grunt Lawrence had made as he tore it. 

Cecily felt the way that zookeepers who let lions and tigers cuddle and play fight them must have felt all the time. Like she was trapped beneath a predator who was treating her with ease now, but as for later, she couldn't speak for it yet. Lawrence could turn sour at any moment, without a single ounce of warning, so she just laid there, breathing heavily, her eyes flicking up to his every other second with a nervous sort of caution; checking for any indicator that he was about to do something worse. 

His eyes stayed relatively calm. The strange sort of calm that accompanied sober Lawrence, comparable to the sea before a tsunami. Dangerous, quiet, calculative. She was almost afraid to breath. Equally as afraid that if she stopped breathing, he would never let her start again. 

His long fingers were warm against her skin as they traced the bone lines of her individual ribs, the slight curve beneath her breasts, the hollow where her ribs met, a twin to the dip of her collarbones. 

She let out a soft gasp when his short nails raked across her ribs, hangnails catching on her skin, and the corners of his mouth turned down in displeasure. She was mentally berating herself for not staying quiet when Lawrence let go of her throat, and reached over for something on the stand at the end of the couch, and then she heard a ripping sound. She barely had time to react when Lawrence grabbed her jaw with one hand, and smoothed a piece of duct tape across her mouth with the other. 

Her chest bloomed with outrage, and she shot Lawrence an insolent look. He was in too strange a mood to be doing things like taping her mouth shut, but she didn't have much say in what Lawrence did to her- she never did, and now it was in a literal sense. She felt herself start to panic again. She could try screaming, but even if anyone else in the building could hear her over all the noise his various machines made, it was doubtful they would even notice, or care. It wasn’t exactly the most reputable neighborhood. 

She must have looked like a wreck, pinned beneath him on the couch with her only piece of clothing being a shirt that was ripped in half, clinging to her only by the sleeves, her mouth taped over, her eyes filled with fat, unspilled tears. Lawrence's hands trailed down past her hip bones, and she barely had time to register what was happening before he reached between her legs and pushed two fingers inside of her without warning. 

Her eyes rolled back into her head, a muffled groan sounding through the tape, but if it bothered Lawrence he didn't show it. His fingers curled up to press against her and she saw stars burst behind squeezed-shut eyelids. He toyed with her mercilessly, grabbing at her so roughly he was bound to leave bruises, his fingers doing the same level of damage inside her as she struggled below him. 

It almost felt good, if not for the fact that he was being so rough. Cecily never really did like rough sex, despite putting up with it for the sake of the other person. Lawrence was always a toss up, sometimes he was gentle, other times he treated her like a sack of meat to be thrown this way and that with very little regard for her personal feelings on the matter. 

Usually, she didn’t care, but then again, she wasn’t usually pinned beneath him on the verge of suffocating because the air in his apartment was so thick and hot she could barely get a breath in through her nose alone. All the sensations built up until she felt like she would explode if he kept going- it was all too much- his hands on her and her chest heaving with the strain of not being able to breathe right and the humidity and how hot he was getting on top of her- 

Cecily couldn’t stop herself anymore, she struggled wildly to get her arm out from under his leg, and when it was free she immediately slapped his shoulder urgently, making a series of incoherent, panicked sounds behind the tape as she did. 

Lawrence stilled, looked up at her, and paused for a moment filled with tension before he withdrew the hand assaulting her, and reached over to rip the tape off her mouth without a single shred of empathy for how that might feel for her. 

Cecily bit down on her tongue to stop the scream that wanted to escape when he did it. She was pretty sure he pulled the top layer of skin off her lips. If he had been anyone else, if this had been a normal situation, she might have made some off-hand joke about how nice it was of him to give her a free moustache wax, but he wasn’t anyone else, and he hardly took well to jokes on a good day. 

This was shaping up to be anything but a good day. 

She summoned up the courage to look at him, and almost immediately regretted it. He looked absolutely wild, his pupils blown out so that his eyes were almost entirely black, his breathing was hard, and he was starting to sweat under his arms and around the collar of his shirt. Her heart was still slamming inside her chest, and she was terrified that he would get close enough to feel it, or hear it. Something about his demeanour right now made her think that he wasn’t going to react well to discovering how paralyzingly terrified she was of him right that moment. 

Then Lawrence started leaning forward slowly, so slowly that she could barely see him move at first, until she could feel his soft breath against her cheek, and then so close that she swore she could feel the flutter of his eyelashes against her, and then he pressed his mouth against hers. 

Cecily had a single moment to feel dazed by the fact that Lawrence was kissing her before his hand reached up and curled around her throat again, and squeezed so hard she saw stars dance across her vision. 

The kiss was almost experimental, like he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing or if he wanted to be doing it. She could guess why- Lawrence had never kissed her before. She was pretty sure Lawrence had never kissed _anyone_ before. 

After a moment he seemed to get more confident, and almost gently coaxed her mouth open with his, his tongue slipping inside her mouth, and he tasted like smoke and salt, almost unpleasant. She could feel how hard he was against her leg, and mused to herself for the hundredth time how odd it was that Lawrence actually _liked_ physical intimacy. He seemed so disgusted by all other displays of human emotion that, if she hadn’t known better, she might have guessed he was entirely sex-repulsed. The reality was that he seemed to need the release like an addict fiending for his next fix. She was sure he could live without it- sure that he had in the past- but when he got it, he took to it like a feral dog took to a steaming mound of raw meat. Savage and hungry and all impulse. 

His hand let go of her neck, and all the blood rushed back into her head around the same time that he unexpectedly sunk his teeth into her bottom lip so hard she jerked away from him in shock, her head hitting painfully against the arm of the couch as she looked at him in dumbfounded surprise. It took a single second spent in silence until the pain of the bite actually hit her. 

Blood immediately began to flow freely from the bite in her lip, Lawrence gazed at it for a long moment before he did everything but vault off her, and dashed into the kitchen without warning, leaving her confused and bleeding openly on his couch. 

Cecily sat up with a groan, using the ragged remains of the t-shirt she was barely wearing to mop up the blood that had begun to coat her neck and her chest. Her lip felt swollen and throbbed with pain, and blood was dripping from her chin to splat onto bare legs. Lawrence came back, looking almost stricken as he handed her a roll of ancient-looking paper towels, stained slightly yellow like they had been sitting on the counter for years without use. 

She had bitten her lip before, dozens of times, but had no idea it could feel this bad, or bleed this much. It wasn’t long before the task of cleaning it up felt next to impossible, with her hands covered in it and getting stickier with each passing moment. She didn’t even want to know how bad her mouth would look when she peeked into the dirty mirror on his bathroom wall. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had nearly torn her lip in half. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, avoiding her gaze and staring around the room almost sheepishly, standing a healthy distance away. She thought it was strange that the sight of her blood had thrown him from his stupor, but wouldn’t be lying if she said she was grateful for it. He had been starting to genuinely terrify her, and while being around Lawrence almost always assured that she would feel a plethora of strange emotions, fear wasn’t usually one of them. 

She ripped off a chunk of paper towel and began to dab at the blood around her chin before pressing it to her lip with a hiss of pain. She knew Lawrence struggled to keep down violent impulses every day, she could see it in the way he moved and the way he had to almost physically restrain himself in certain situations. She had no place to be surprised about this- she knew exactly what he was capable of, she had known him for months. And she wasn’t really surprised, maybe just nervous. Nervous that he had so clearly slipped up that time, and hadn’t been in control at all. Nervous about what else he was capable of doing that she didn’t know about. 

Once again she thought about having a normal boyfriend. She thought about the unfamiliar man who always popped up in her head when she considered the concept of someone normal- a tall guy with brown hair and an easy smile, holding a paper bag full of groceries with some stalks of asparagus poking out the top. He would cook for her in their modern apartment, and dance with her in the kitchen while their dinner burned on the stovetop because they were both too in love to bother saving it. 

The thought of it almost made her want to wretch up all the acid in her stomach. Cecily didn’t want normal, didn’t deserve normal, and she knew that- so Lawrence was what she got. Being covered in her own blood at eight in the morning after being nearly strangled to death and accosted on his couch was exactly what she deserved for knowingly putting herself in this situation. 

And it was a strangely relieving thought to have. Normal required so much, asked so much of her. That easy-going brown haired boyfriend with the groceries might have not bitten her lip open for no good reason, or because he was feeling particularly animalistic and didn’t know how to control himself, but he would never have been able to put up with her. Normal would have thrown Cecily to the curb long ago, in a way that Lawrence never would. 

He put up with her, so she put up with this. 

“It’s okay,” she told him, once the blood had slowed down and there was a pile of stained red paper towels on his couch beside her. He was still standing on the threshold of his kitchen, as if wary of approaching her. As if he was fully aware that he couldn’t control himself. She couldn’t even make herself feel smug about it. 

What she did feel, was in control. Cecily never felt like she was a second away from pummeling someone to death, or punching a wall, or anything else that people who were bubbling with anger beneath the surface tended to do. She wasn’t the type to lash out when she got angry; she was expertly practised in keeping it all inside, where nobody else could ever find it. Her reactions tended towards calm and sterile, and she was entirely unwilling to compromise herself by acting out her emotions, unlike Lawrence. 

So right then, in that moment, she felt like she had the upper hand for the first time in the entire span of their relationship. Or whatever they were doing could be called. She stood up, half naked and covered in her own blood, and walked towards him, waiting to feel afraid again, because earlier he had been truly terrifying. She thought that, if she could go back in time and show herself that scene of Lawrence on top of her, trying to bite her or choke her or whatever his goal was back there, that she might never have started seeing him. 

Now she was in it. Now she doesn’t have the foresight to lay it all out in front of her and make the wise choice. Now all she wanted was the assurance that- since she couldn’t have normal- she could at least have _this._ Whatever this was. 

When she reached him, she stood up on her toes and slid her hand around his neck, pulling him down closer to her and pressing her messy, bloody mouth against his as hard as she could without hurting herself more than she was already hurting. Lawrence made a sound of surprise, but didn’t close his eyes right away, and neither did she, so she could see how filled with unease and apprehension they were. She put a hand gently on his stomach, feeling the corded muscle beneath his shirt, slightly damp with sweat, and lightly pushed him back against the wall. This time her heart wasn’t beating fast, or leaping into her throat with dread. This time, she felt absolutely nothing at all as he kissed her back, his arms coming around her to cage her in. 

The bite on her lip still stung, and kissing him was nearly pure agony as his lips and tongue slid over the wound again and again, until all she could taste between them was her own coppery blood, warm and sticky. She brought a hand up to run through his hair, but thought better on it, and placed it on the wall next to him instead, leaving a smeared, bloody handprint in her wake. 

* * *

After they finished, Lawrence had wordlessly gone to get a shower, and closed the door behind him. Cecily was still sitting on his couch, having thrown away the bloodied paper towels, and changed back into her work clothes from the day before. She smelled like sweat and blood, and had the thought as she pulled her day-old clothing back on that nothing in the world was worse than putting on worn socks that had spent the entire previous day stuffed into a pair of work shoes. 

He had immediately taken the bathroom, so she hadn’t really had a chance to clean herself up properly, and from a glance in the grease-splattered mirror above his kitchen sink, she knew she was still covered in drying blood, smears of it coating the sides of her neck and her entire chin. Her lip looked awful, he had probably bitten through it entirely. In any other situation, she might have gone to the emergency room for stitches. The kissing hadn’t helped matters either, but she found that once she had started, she was unable, or unwilling, to stop. Sex with Lawrence didn’t often feel _nice,_ but kissing him did. When he wasn’t biting her like a rabid dog. 

This time had been no exception. He had been straight to business, pulling her onto his lap on the couch beside all the bloody towels and slamming into her until he was finished with no regard for her own satisfaction. But his hands roaming up and down her spine as if trying to memorize each notch and curve had felt nice, and so had the way he licked at her bitten lip every time it started bleeding again, so she hadn’t really cared. 

When she heard the water turn off, she stood up awkwardly and gazed around the room as if looking for something that would tell her what to do. Going back home felt strange, but staying wasn’t really an option. She didn’t want to be any closer to Lawrence than she had already gotten, not after the terrifying way he had treated her earlier. Space was probably the wisest choice, but she wasn’t exactly crazy about the concept of going back to her own place to sit around in silence all day. 

Maybe she would rent a movie. Something without jump scares or gore. Something stupid and fluffy, like a rom-com that cost 4.99 on the pay-per-view channel, that she could eat with stale chocolate and greasy popcorn that would undoubtedly sting her lip. 

When Lawrence came out of the shower, he was ruffling his damp hair, a grey towel wrapped around his waist. Cecily was used to seeing him shirtless by now, although most times when they had sex he kept his clothes on. He seemed unable to sleep comfortably with a shirt on though, so she had done her fair share of leering while he had been sleeping. He was pretty to look at, despite everything not-so-pretty about him, like how cagey he was, or his aptitude for random violence. 

He definitely wasn’t someone who worked out, probably not even once in his life, but his job was manual labor, and he had apparently gotten some benefit out of it besides a bi-weekly paycheck and a place to go that wasn’t home. He was lean in that accidental sort of way, muscle built up in all the places he needed it most, like his stomach and his arms, which had light pink scratch marks down his biceps that she didn’t entirely remember putting there. 

His pale hair was awkwardly cut, and hung around his face and his shoulders in limp, wet tendrils that were losing fat droplets of water down onto his carpeted floors beneath him. His eyes looked more sated now, and she was guessing that the night shift had probably caught up to him. He would undoubtedly be out cold in the next hour or so. 

“I’m gonna go,” she said, clearing her throat awkwardly. Part of her wished that Lawrence took more initiative in their interactions, so that she didn’t always have to feel so stiff about it. He often just waited for her to speak first, giving the impression that he had never had a normal conversation before, and wasn’t sure how to go about it. 

He nodded, “I have to sleep,” was all he responded with, accompanied by a wistful glance towards his bed. Cecily gave a curt nod, and stepped out of the way as he walked over to his door and began undoing all the locks that held it closed. It was funny- Lawrence didn’t come across as particularly paranoid, socially anxious maybe, and suspicious, but not paranoid. The locks on the door argued otherwise, despite everything else not lining up. Maybe he had been a victim of burglary before, she thought idly, and wasn’t anxious to repeat that scenario. 

He held the door open, and she breezed past him, smelling his piney soap and cheap shampoo as she did. She was about to just leave without a word or second glance, like usual, when she saw him staring at her as if considering something. A long moment of silence passed between them, and just as she opened her mouth to say some sort of goodbye, the door closed in her face with a soft click, and she was left staring at it for a minute before she shook her head, and headed towards the parking garage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -So I was originally only planning for this to be a two chapter fic, but I realized that would make chapter two close to 10k words, so I decided to break it up and add an extra chapter. 
> 
> -Cecily is a really unreliable narrator, so in case anyone is having trouble picking up on it, Lawrence is really struggling with boundaries, and having someone who is 'his' but who he can't do whatever he wants to with is weird and frustrating for him. Give the man credit, he's really trying, he's just not very good at being a good boyfriend. Like, at all. 
> 
> -Sorry for how weird the narration got in the beginning of this chapter. It didn't feel right to break it up or introduce a Law POV for like 7 sentences, but I needed to see through his eyes for a few moments before Cecily is entirely conscious. 
> 
> -Not to spend my entire chapter notes apologizing, but sorry if the cut away from the sex scene is frustrating for anyone. I typed it up in the AO3 text box without having a backup (rookie mistake, I know) and lost it all when I switched tabs to review something in my notes. I tried re-writing it, but the words didn't flow right anymore and it felt clunky and awkward, and this fic isn't really about sexy times anyways. I might type it up again when I finish the fic and post it as a companion piece, but I'm not sure yet. Let me know in the comments if it's something anyone is interested in.
> 
> -Chapter 3 should be up soon, thanks for reading and you can find me on tumblr at spaceandbones <3


	3. i peeled an orange. want a slice?

Cecily woke up later that day to a pounding knock on her door and a series of blood curdling screams. 

She very quickly discovered that the screams were her own, but the knocking was most definitely not. She fell to the floor in a hasty attempt to untangle herself from the bedsheets, which had wrapped around her legs like serpents in her sleep, and ran a hand through her sweaty hair as she rushed to the door and threw it open. 

On the other side was a concerned looking face belonging to the tenant below her. She had seen him a couple times in passing, he was a big, quiet man who owned several cats despite the no-pets policy, and had a big black moustache. He was the only person she had ever seen wear suspenders unironically. 

“Can I help you?” she asked, more unkindly than she had meant to as she fixed her shirt on her body and immediately realized why he was gaping at her like that. 

After driving home from Law’s, she had collapsed on her bed and immediately fallen asleep without changing out of her clothes or showering first, and if she added to that list the fact that she had been screaming like a murder victim in her sleep, she could understand why her neighbor was looking at her like she had three heads. 

His bushy eyebrows knit together in concern, “I heard screams, came to see if everything was alright, are you-” 

“I’m fine,” Cecily cut him off curtly, “I was having a nightmare and bit my lip in my sleep,” she lied, and cringed a little as she saw him second-glance the blood on her, which was obviously fully dry and not at all the product of biting her lip in her sleep. 

“Just you home?” he asked suspiciously, glancing behind her into the apartment. Cecily opened the door wider, so he could see that it was just her. She was more afraid of him calling the cops because he thought she was a victim of domestic abuse than she was of a strange man knowing she was home alone. She spent most of her time in the company of strange man nowadays, after all. 

“Yup just me, now if you’ll excuse me so I can go wash up?” She tried to look casual, like she wasn’t shaken to her core by the nightmare she had been busy screaming about, like she hadn’t just had the weirdest time with Lawrence a few hours ago, like she wasn’t feeling detached from life like a balloon floating up into the sky untethered. Sleep should have made her feel better- it didn’t. 

Her neighbor gave her one last incredulous look before shaking his head, “I’m one level down if you ever need anything,” he started to leave, but then backed up, “And try to keep the screaming to a minimum. Scared the hell out of my cats…” he muttered as he walked away, shaking his head as if in disbelief. Cecily watched after him until she saw him descend the stairs to the ground level, and slammed her door shut, bolting the lock behind her. 

She was still trying to process the dream that had caused her to start yelling in her sleep, although she could only remember bits and pieces of it now. She had been on the damp forest floor, pine needles digging into her back, and she couldn’t move, or really see anything except a pale moon above her, a sliver of white in the night sky like a claw. Something had been breathing heavily behind her, an animal like a wolf or a bear, but she couldn’t move to get away, or turn to see what it was. 

She took a deep breath, had a glass of water to calm herself down, and stripped out of her disgusting clothes. Once in her bathroom, she gave herself a long look in the steamy mirror- and realized that she looked entirely like she crawled out of a horror movie. Her dark hair was lank and limp around her shoulders, she was liberally coated in dry, flaking blood, and her eyes had circles beneath them so dark they may as well have been bruises. 

She splashed cold water on her face, and reached into the cabinet for a xanax before stepping into the hot shower, and trying to rid herself of all memory of the dream, and of Lawrence too, and the way his wide, wild eyes had looked at her on the couch, just before he had bitten her lip open. 

After she got out and dried off, she became distressingly aware that she didn’t have her cell phone on her. She had taken her bag when she left Law’s earlier that day, but her phone wasn’t inside, nor was it anywhere else in her apartment. It wasn’t like she used it a whole lot- she wasn’t someone who was addicted to her phone or social media apps- but it was still nice to feel connected to the outside world. 

One disturbing revelation she _did_ find inside her bag, however, was the jangly set of Law’s keys that she apparently hadn’t returned before leaving. It was only around dinner time now, and so the chances that he woke up and noticed they were missing were low. She knew he often slept until it got dark out, and that wouldn’t be for another couple hours anyways. Still, she would rather return them then have them burn a hole in her purse all day long, and god knows how he was going to react when she showed up to his apartment again, his keys in hand. 

She checked the time on the cordless phone that had been in the apartment when she moved in- 5:02pm. She had slept for nearly eight hours. She still had to do groceries before the store closed, and go buy light bulbs. Half of hers were burned out, and her apartment felt far too shadowy for her liking. She wouldn’t have time to go to Law’s until after she ran her errands, which meant that she was phoneless for the time being. 

It was probably better that way anyways, it would give her some alone time to think about the way she was feeling, and maybe get back into a better headspace before she went over there again. Not like she had been in a good headspace these past few months anyways- the east coast was rainy and damp and gloomy, she had no friends here, and her mom barely ever called, too busy living life as a retired socialite still riding on the alimony she received from her ex-husband each month. Her mother had flown through husbands the way one might fly through purses, or pairs of work boots, and it often made her distant, too busy for Cecily’s problems. 

But that was fine. She was an adult- she didn’t need her mother’s company, or reassurance, no matter how badly she might have wanted it in the moment. Right now, all she really needed was to go get groceries, have a nice filling meal, and settle down on her couch for some cheesy old movies. After, of course, she brought Lawrence his keys back. 

In fact, the more she thought about Lawrence as she closed her car door behind her, started the engine, and carefully backed out to avoid running over any children or their tasseled bikes, the more she felt herself grow apprehensive. She had known all along that he was a strange sort of person, but recently she had become startling aware just abnormal he was. Maybe it was that she had finally gotten close enough to realize- if she didn't back away now, she might never be able to. 

Her lip looked mortifying, having crusted over with dried blood and swollen up over the past few hours. She was reminded of one time when she had been eight or nine, and her cousin Freddy had gone to the dentist to get a tooth pulled for sugar rot. Cecily hadn’t known it at the time, being only eight or so, but it was considered unorthodox to give small children high doses of numbing agents when they got teeth pulled. She had taken one look at her cousin the day after the dentist appointment to know why- he had bitten all the way through his lip in his sleep, completely unaware of the damage his small, sharp toddler incisors were doing. 

She could still vividly picture the way his lip had nearly dangled in half off of his face in the aftermath, and the thick stitches that had gone in it a little while after that. He had really never looked the same after, being nearly twenty now and still having an ugly scar to show for it. Feeling her heart speed up at the mere thought of it, Cecily hastily reached up to haul down her sun visor, and checked her lip in the mirror. Still attached to the rest of her mouth- that was a good sign. 

The grocery store was quiet, like it usually was around dinner time in her neighborhood. Everyone was already at home cooking or eating, and so she roamed around the produce aisle with nobody else to share it with except an elderly woman nearly hunched over her cart. She had a case of prunes and a bag of apples inside, and was busy pondering over some vegan carrot juice at the end of the aisle. 

Cecily swerved around her and directed her cart towards the fruit section. She unwound a plastic bag from the dispenser, struggled to get it open, and turned towards the display of oranges to grab a couple for work next week. 

Her stomach flip-flopped around inside of her as her hand hovered an inch or two above the closest orange- which was grey and green and sludgy in some parts, with flies buzzing all around it. In fact, every single orange in the display stand was in the same state, each one hosting its fair share of maggots crawling around the rotting pulp, the floor sticky with putrid orange juice that had dripped down off the stall. 

Cecily dropped the bag, watching it float to the floor with a soft crinkle, and took a step back, nearly toppling her cart over. Her shoe made a squelching sound as she brought it up from the place where the juice had gotten sticky and slimy, and swallowed hard before trying to calm her nerves. It was no big deal, she told herself, as she steered around the displays and beelined for an employee in a green smock, busy reshelving loaves of bread and bags of bagel, it was a couple of rotten oranges. She embalmed bodies for a living, if she couldn’t handle a few moldy oranges, she was really starting to slip. 

“Excuse me?” she reached over to tap the employee on the shoulder. He turned towards her with an irritated look, removing a pair of earbuds that were blasting something that sounded like a dozen pots and pans banging together. 

He looked at her expectantly, and she continued, “I just thought I should tell someone, all the oranges over there are moldy,” she wrinkled her nose as she explained, watching the boy sigh and place down the armful of bagels he had been carrying. Cecily turned to show him the fruits, leaving her cart where it was, and had a sour thought about how teenagers always had such terrible customer service. It wasn’t like she particularly cared, but if she had been a forty year old soccer mom of five, she might have. Her own mother probably would have. 

They got to the display, Cecily averting her eyes so she didn’t have to see the disgusting mound of decaying fruit again, but startled when she saw the look of annoyance on the boy’s face, “Which oranges?” he asked dubiously, picking up a couple and placing them back down. 

Cecily frowned, turned back towards the oranges, and felt her stomach drop. Every one of them were perfectly round, vibrantly orange, and didn’t have so much as a speck of mold on them. She picked one up hesitantly, and gazed at it in morbid fascination. She placed it back down and looked around to make sure this was the only stand of oranges, and that she hadn’t just gone to a different one instead, but sure enough, these were the only ones. 

“Sorry,” she muttered to the employee, who was already walking away, head shaking like he thought he had been the recipient of a boring practical joke. Cecily cast one last look at the oranges again before she practically ran for the exit. 

When she got outside, she took in a chest full of fresh air, and tried to steady her breathing. So what, she had gotten a little confused? She was probably just tired, although, even as she tried to reassure herself with that thought, she did have to admit that she had slept almost sixteen hours in the past day alone. Too much sleep, then? She sat in her car and laid her head against the steering wheel, wondering if maybe she was just dreaming. She felt around in her purse for her phone again before remembering that she had left it at Lawrence’s, or lost it at the Warehouse. 

She pulled out of the parking lot and started heading towards that part of town. Groceries could wait, she could order a pizza tonight and just...try to have a quiet night in. The interaction with Lawrence would be brief, and to the point, and she would take some time to figure out if she really wanted to continue seeing him or not. Maybe he had shocked himself enough earlier that morning, and would take steps to work on his impulsive need to lash out when he felt threatened. 

She could always hope. 

Despite her plans, however, she found herself pulling into a parking lot that was not the one beneath Law’s apartment. There was a sign swinging at the front of the bar, offering happy hour discounts from 6pm-8pm. Cecily checked the time on her car stereo- 6:45pm. She hopped out of the car and promised herself only one drink. One drink, to steel her nerves, and then she would get her phone back, and go home to relax. 

Once inside though, things didn’t exactly go as planned. She ordered her first drink, a whiskey sour, and a glass of water (her sponsor in AA always told her that if she was absolutely going to drink, she could at least keep hydrated so the hangover wouldn’t be as bad). There were only three other patrons in the bar this early- a couple eating a plate of pub fries and drinking foamy beers from tall glass cups, and an old man slouching over a slot machine, eyes glazed as he watched the rows of cherries, apples, and oranges spin. Cecily internally cringed when she saw the bright little cartoon oranges, and ordered a second drink before she had even finished her first. 

If she had been hoping for the whiskey to clear her mind, she would have been sorely disappointed. If anything, it just made her feel more foggy, more unsure of herself. Had she even gone into the grocery store? Maybe she had fallen asleep in the parking lot and had a bad dream. It wouldn’t be the first time that sort of thing happened to her. By the time she had her fourth drink, the bartender had started to eye her car keys on the counter next to her wallet warily, so Cecily paid her bill and left after placing a rumpled bill on the counter for a tip. 

She had driven drunk a couple of times before, but only during college, only when she had been out of money and had nowhere to sleep for the night. She had been stupid back then, and had been telling herself for the past few years that it wouldn’t- couldn’t- be like that anymore. Now she found herself behind the wheel of her car, trying to tell herself that she was fine. She was barely even drunk- sure, she had a lower tolerance since abstaining, and _sure,_ the drinks had been pretty strong, but Law’s apartment wasn't even ten blocks from the bar, and the traffic wasn’t bad once the 8pm rush was over. 

She only really realized how drunk she was when she stepped out of her car and looked at all the steps she had to climb to get to Law’s apartment on the fourth floor. They seemed to ebb and flow in front of her, and she stumbled more times than she would care to admit ascending them. By the time she got to the top, the sky was turning a dark purple-orange color, streaked with dark clouds. It was strangely warm for an evening in mid-October, and almost felt like it was going to rain later. 

When she stopped in the hallway in front of Law’s apartment, she leaned against the opposite wall and just stared at the door, taking a few calming breaths before she gathered up the nerve to raise her fist and knock three or four times. She had his keys, yes, but it would have felt too familiar for her to just unlock his door and go inside, and she knew he didn’t have work today, so he was more than likely at home. 

She waited about five minutes with no answer before she knocked again. This time, after her knocks, she heard a clatter behind the door, almost like he had banged into something. She must have woken him up, she reasoned, and he had tripped in his haste to get to the door, but another five minutes passed, and still nothing. 

This time when she knocked, she let him know who it was, “Law? It’s me, I- I have your keys still, from last night? I just wanted to drop them off,” she finished, ear practically pressed to the door as she waited for a noise, a response, anything. Was he ignoring her? She had heard a bang, so she knew he was in there. 

Sober Cecily would have just walked away. Sober Cecily would have gone home, rented her movie, and enjoyed a quiet night in, and promised to return Law’s keys tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever he felt like not ignoring her anymore. 

Drunk Cecily was determined to get this over with. The faster she got this done, the faster she got to relax, and right now, all she wanted was a greasy pizza and a long, hot shower with her favorite music playing. 

She banged on the door again, this time harder, “I left my phone in there too!” she called out, and when he didn’t immediately respond, she slammed the heel of her hand against the door until it was red and throbbing with a dull pain. 

Cecily stepped back, rooted around her bag until her hand closed over his dangly set of keys, and pulled them out. She gave him another minute, and then two, and then made the stupidest decision she had possibly ever made in her life, and got to work unlocking the door. 

Five locks later, and the last one made a satisfying click sound before she turned the knob and pushed the door open. It was hot and humid inside, like it usually was, but the place smelled weird, not musty and like a greenhouse as it usually did, this time there was something metallic in the air, like lead, or-

She met Law’s eyes across the room mid-action. Her hand was frozen on the doorknob, her purse sliding down her shoulder, his keys in her idle hand. Lawrence was dressed but barely, he was wearing a plaid shirt, the buttons done up incorrectly, and a pair of grey sweatpants that looked like they were on backwards. He looked manic, like a guilty child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Cecily tipped her head to the side, and then she looked down and saw a pair of unfamiliar shoes next to the door, a strangers windbreaker hung up on the peg above them. 

_Oh._ He was cheating on her, then. It might have been more realistic to say he had a friend over, but she knew Lawrence didn’t have any friends, except maybe that creep from the warehouse who had accused him of being a virgin. Something about the way he talked about the other man made her think that they got along better than Law got along with most other people, but these shoes and this coat were too small to be his. So the thought of Lawrence finding someone else- someone who he’d rather spend time with than her- someone _better,_ it made her grind her teeth in her head until she was sure they would break. She slammed the door shut behind her, Lawrence still frozen like a deer in headlights, and had just opened her mouth to accuse him when her eyes finally dropped to the thing in front of him. 

Or rather, the _person._

Cecily’s brain took a few minutes longer than it should have to understand what was happening in front of her. The person sitting in front of Law was trying to twist around to look at her, and at first she couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just get up until she saw the tape around their arms and legs, holding them tight against the chair. Her next thought was that it was some sort of bondage thing, and he _was_ cheating on her, but the guy in the chair didn’t look like Law’s type; he still had all his clothes on, and there was a blood-red line running from the edge of his hairline to the base of his spine, and- _oh my fucking god-_

She threw his keys across the room and darted her hand back out towards the door knob, berating herself internally for even closing it in the first place. She felt like she was moving though jello, her movements thick and stiff as her hand slipped off the knob, and then Lawrence was on her quicker than she had guessed he was able to move. 

He didn’t bother reasoning with her, or trying to block the door, he just body slammed her, the two of them flying backwards and into the wall that divided his kitchen and his main room with a sickening smack. Cecily’s head slammed back against the wall hard enough to leave a dent, and she bit down on the side of her cheek, drawing blood as she desperately tried to untangle herself from him. 

“Calm down,” she heard him hiss in her ear, and reached out with a fist to punch him in the face. Her blow missed pathetically, sailing past his ear as she managed to squirm out from under him long enough to swing again. This time her fist connected off the side of his shoulder, but it was poorly aimed and didn’t hit very hard, he barely seemed to notice as he got onto his knees, darting out to wrap a hand around her ankle when she tried to back away. 

Her thoughts were a terrified jumble of forming some sort of escape plan and wondering why the adrenaline hadn’t kicked in- or maybe it had and she had just never been in a fight like this to know what it felt like. She kicked out at Lawrence, trying to shake his hand off her leg, and her foot connected between his ribs with a satisfying thump. She had a second to feel triumphant about it before she glanced up at his face and realized just how angry that had made him. 

His hair was entirely down, the choppy strands sticking to his face with sweat, his eyes pale and horrible and wild with indignant rage as reached out to grab a fistful of her hair and pull her awkwardly towards him. Cecily frantically scrambled to fix her awkward position and avoid being bent over her own legs until her back was flush against his chest, and they were both sitting uncomfortably on the floor, her foot pinned beneath her leg, his fist wound tightly in her hair. 

“Calm _down,”_ he told her again, this time with renewed urgency. The person tied to the chair across the room was trying to wriggle free, making a babble of incoherent sounds as they did. Cecily spit strands of her own hair out of her mouth, flinching at how hard he was pulling it from her scalp, and genuinely tried to calm down. Maybe he would let her go- maybe she could promise not to talk, after all- what did she care if he killed someone? 

She stopped struggling and leaned back against him limply, breathing hard, “Who is that?” she panted, tasting blood in her mouth from where she had bitten her cheek. Her head was throbbing, her vision refusing to focus, and for a moment she actually wondered if he gave her brain damage when he had thrown them both into the wall like that. Lawrence sniffed behind her, “Nobody- I don’t know- a stranger,” he said forcefully, sounding more riled up than she had ever heard him before. He wasn’t reclusive and shy right now, he sounded sure of himself, despite his vague answer. Like he knew exactly what he was doing.

“A str-” Cecily stopped herself, trying to stay calm so she didn’t agitate him any further, “What does that mean? How did he _get_ here?” 

_Nobody knows where I am,_ she thought desperately, and then she remembered her phone- somewhere in his apartment. If she could convince him that she was fine, even for a second, if she could look for it then maybe she could unlock and dial 911 before he noticed-

Lawrence let out a sound behind her that sounded more like an animal than a person, “He’s a _mistake,_ ” he spat, “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t know-” he was stammering frantically, like his words couldn’t keep up with his thoughts, but he didn’t sound meek at all. He sounded dangerous in a way that Cecily had never thought of him before. Weird, reclusive, anti-social? Sure. A deranged kidnapping psychopath? Well, she probably should have guessed. 

“That doesn’t make any sense, Law,” she whispered, feeling the hysteria bubble up beneath her skin like her veins were crawling with bugs. She was eerily reminded of a time at summer camp, years ago, when the camp guide had taken them for a walk on the trails at midnight, and told them how evil faeries would visit bad children who did things like kick cats and rip up flowers from their grandmothers gardens, and fill their stomachs with earthworms as punishment. 

“I’m going to fix it,” Lawrence reassured her, his voice stiff and irritated despite his words of affirmation, and his grip tightened on her anyways. Cecily was fairly certain she was in shock. He didn’t even sound remorseful, or afraid, it was like-

Like he was more annoyed that she had caught him, than he was about anything that was happening (or going to happen) to her or the man tied up a few feet away. 

“You have to let him go,” she told him sternly, hoping that if she could just take control of the situation, he would see reason. They could make sure the stranger didn’t talk, they could bribe him or threaten him or-

_What_ was she thinking? She didn’t care if Lawrence got caught, if this guy went to the police and told them some sweaty stoner had abducted him from wherever Lawrence had gotten him, he could go to jail for the rest of his life for all she cared, all she wanted was to get out, to get free. In fact, Cecily wasn’t even sure she _cared_ about the man in the chair. She would have easily left him with Lawrence if she got to walk out that door and never come back. He could even keep her phone, a parting gift, she didn’t care anymore. 

Lawrence stiffened behind her, the muscles in his chest tensing, his breathing heavy as she waited for him to respond, let her go, to do _anything._

"I'll let him go," he settled on, but his voice had taken a gravely edge, "When I'm done with him." 

Cecily wasted no time letting Lawrence keep her there on the floor, debating what to do with her. The second he stopped talking and what he had said fully sunk in, she leaned forwards and much as his hold on her allowed, and slammed her head back into his face as hard as she could. 

She heard a crunch- his nose maybe- and felt a nauseating pain bloom on the backside of her skull, right where she had banged it against the wall moments earlier. Lawrence cried out in pain and the grasp on her hair slackened just enough for her to rip away from him, sending herself tumbling to the floor a few feet away. 

She was vaguely aware of the prickling sensation at the top of her scalp where he had undoubtedly pulled out chunks of her hair when she wrenched away, but she couldn't spend any time caring about it because Lawrence was getting to his feet, his expression venomous and his nose bleeding down his face to drip onto the floor below. 

Her vision was swimming, her head practically buzzing with pain, and for the first time all evening Cecily was glad she had stopped for drinks. If she had been entirely sober the pain might have been enough to stop her in her tracks. Instead she made a mad dash for his couch, and tore off the seat cushions frantically, looking for her phone. 

Even if she could get to dial 911- she could throw the phone across the room and hope the operator picked up before Lawrence could reach it to hang up. Would they be able to track the call? She couldn't remember if that was real, or just something that happened in movies. 

Lawrence was advancing on her and she still hadn't found her phone, so she picked up a couch cushion and flung it at him with as much strength behind it as she could muster. He caught it as it hit him softly, with a look of barely suppressed rage, and threw it off to the side, where it hit a shelf full of glass vials and small succulents in terracotta pots. Several things smashed to the floor, but he didn't stop to assess the damage, and just as his hand closed around her wrist, her fingers curled around something smooth and familiar- her phone. 

She jerked away, but his grip was too tight and she just pulled him towards her. She hastily pocketed her phone and picked up another cushion to frantically beat him with, hoping to fend him off just long enough- 

"STOP IT!" Lawrence all but roared, snatching the pillow from her and releasing his crushing hold on her wrist. Without an anchor keeping her upright, Cecily found herself toppling backwards as Lawrence suddenly released her and threw the cushion aside. 

Her back hit the floor and the air rushed from her lungs, making her gasp painfully as she tried to suck back oxygen like she was drowning. She flipped over onto her stomach and tried crawling away, clumsily reaching for the phone in her pocket and pulling it out. She cursed herself for putting a passcode lock on the phone as she tried and failed to enter it twice, and then the third time it unlocked with that familiar sound, and she was so close, all she had to do was- 

Something connected with her hand so hard she could swear she heard bones crunch. She must have screamed, but her ears were ringing so loudly that she could hardly hear herself. Lawrence strode over to the phone he had kicked out of her hand, gave it a curious look, and smashed the heel of his boot down on it, inches from her face. 

Cecily let out a pathetic groan as she watched her last hope for rescue get crushed into a thousand pieces of glass and plastic, desperately trying to reason with herself that she could find another way out of this, the phone hadn't been her only option, she could still get the door, or scream loud enough and pray against all reason that someone in the building would hear and call the cops. 

"Now-" Lawrence started, advancing on her again, looking murderous, "If you would be quiet and _listen_ to me-" 

Cecily sat up like a petulant child, turned on him with unbridling rage blossoming in her chest, and opened her mouth to scream as loudly as she was physically capable of. It worked for a second, the noise felt like it was nearly ripping her throat to shreds with the effort it took, and Lawrence seemed stunned into silence for a heartbeat before he practically jumped on her. 

His knee slammed down on her stomach so hard she dry heaved, and her head ached as he pressed it into the carpet, his other hand clamping down around her mouth and her nose so tightly she couldn't get a single sliver of breath through. 

Cecily locked eyes with him- his pale blue stare locked onto her with an animalistic sort of malice, and she tried to make her own look pleading and innocent, anything to make him soften up for a second, she just needed a minute to get the jump on him and then she could knock him out, or find something to stab him with. She just needed a chance. 

But Lawrence didn't let up. His crushing grip on her head was giving her a splitting headache, and the more air he deprived her of, the worse it got, and the harder it was to think coherently. Her vision became dotted with black spots, her mouth was dry and her tongue felt thick and heavy. It all felt like a bad dream, one where she was trying to run from the monster but her legs wouldn't work anymore. She hadn't thought that really happened in real life. 

She gave one last feeble attempt at a struggle by kicking her legs out beneath him, trying to ram him in the back with a knee, her arms coming up to swipe at his face and gouge deep red lines down his arms, nearly matching the set she had given him for an entirely different reason just that morning. The last thing she saw before her world blotted out with darkness was Lawrence hovering over her, his gaze softening when he saw her start to fade away. 

The last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was, "Sweet dreams, Cecily," and then she let the darkness take her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Oranges are now like universally regarded as a symbol of love and selflessness. I decided to turn them into symbols of rot and decay for fun :)
> 
> -ONCE AGAIN I have to split up this chapter to avoid having it be too long. This fic originally started as a one-shot and has now evolved past recognition 😭. What can I say, Cecily has a story to tell and places she needs to go before I'm allowed to finish. Not to prepare my own words only to eat them later, but chapter 4 should be the final chapter. 
> 
> -Also I looked at gatobob's layout for Law's apartment today and...wow I got along wrong haha. I was going off my mental image of it, so if stuff doesn't match up, its cause today was my first time seeing her blueprints. 
> 
> -You can find me on tumblr at spaceandbones <3


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